On the Bookshelf

By Leslie Weddell

Healing the Pain of Heartache

by Erv Hinds ’63

Subtitled “A Physician Explores the Broken Heart Syndrome,” this book provides medical evidence underlying the intuitive knowledge of heartache. It presents heartache as a legitimate illness that needs to be treated — just as other illnesses involving physical pain are treated. Documented stories and data illustrate how heartache acts upon the body to produce the profound changes scientifically noted in what is called “broken heart syndrome.” This is a guide to help treat acute heartache and to rehabilitate the patient who has surrendered to helplessness.

A New Sacred Geometry: The Art and Science of Frank Chester

by Seth Miller ’98

This book is a visually compelling journey through the unique geometric discoveries of Frank Chester, a contemporary sacred geometer, artist, and sculptor. Chester discovered a new geometric form that unites the five Platonic solids and provides indications about the form and function of the human heart. This new form, called the Chestahedron, was discovered in 2000, and is a seven-sided polyhedron with surfaces of equal area. Chester’s work has potential implications across a number of areas, from physiology
to architecture, sculpture, geology, and beyond.

ISBN-13: 978-0988749207 Published by Spirit Alchemy Design, 2013.

James Madison: A Life Reconsidered

by Lynne Cheney ’63

This biography studies a man of vaunted modesty who changed the world. Outwardly reserved, Madison was the intellectual driving force behind the Constitution and crucial to its ratification. His political philosophy and rationale for the union of states — so eloquently presented in The Federalist Papers — helped shape the nation Americans live in today. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Madison would found the first political party in the country’s history. As Jefferson’s secretary of state, he managed the Louisiana Purchase. As president, he led the country in its first war under the Constitution, the War of 1812. Without precedent to guide him, he would demonstrate that a republic could defend its honor and independence — and still remain a republic. Cheney discussed the book at CC in April.

ISBN-13: 978-0670025190. Published by Viking, 2014.

Rogue Touch and Meet Me at the River

by Nina de Gramont ’88

Rogue Touch, written under the pseudonym Christine Woodward, features Rogue, a Marvel Comics X-Men regular, whose skin and touch are deadly weapons: She accidentally put her boyfriend in a coma when they kissed and has been living alone in a cramped apartment and scraping by on food stamps ever since. She later meets otherworldly James and everything changes. He’s like her — alone and on the run. To elude James’s dangerous family, the pair takes to the highway. As they cross the country, their simmering attraction intensifies and they both open up about their secretive pasts.

In Meet Me at the River, a coming-of-age novel, Tressa is grieving the death of her soulmate, Luke, and blaming herself for the accident. Compounding the tragedy, Tressa is surrounded by family who shunned their relationship when Luke was alive — because he was her stepbrother. Now they’re exasperated by her tenacious hold on his death and lack of drive regarding the future. What no one knows is that Luke visits Tressa at night, a reminder that widens the divide between their old world together and her new “after-Luke” life, stalling any movement Tressa makes toward recovery.

Rogue Touch: ISBN-13: 978-1401311025. Published by Hyperion, 2013.

Meet Me at the River: ISBN-13: 978-1416980148. Published by Atheneum Books, 2013.

The Wire and Philosophy: This America, Man

co-edited by Seth Vannatta ’95

By many accounts, HBO’s five-season, 60-episode “The Wire” remains the most important television drama of all time, with each season addressing a different arena of life in Baltimore. The book celebrates the show’s realism as well as its intellectual and philosophical clarity. Selected philosophers who are fans of the show tap into its conflicts and interconnections to expose the underlying philosophical issues and assumptions. Vannatta is an assistant philosophy and religious studies professor at Morgan State University.

ISBN-13: 978-0812698237. Published by Open Court, 2013.

I Love the Work, but I Hate the Business

by Mel Proctor ’69

Proctor has called television and radio baseball play-by-play for teams including the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, San Diego Padres, and Texas Rangers as well as basketball play-by-play for the Los Angeles Clippers, New Jersey Nets, and Washington Bullets. He also has worked at a variety of networks, calling more than 5,000 events and conducting more than 2,000 interviews. Through his eyes, readers will experience some of sports’ most memorable moments during the past five decades.

ISBN13: 9781935628279. Published by Blue River Press, 2013.

Distilling Rob: Manly Lies and Whisky Truths

by Rob Gard ’92

Whisky. The word evokes manhood. But what makes a whisky a whisky and a man a man? Gard doesn’t have the answers, but he knows that his high-profile, fast-living life in Hollywood has him drinking a lot of one and feeling nothing like the other. Gard abandons his L.A. lifestyle and moves to a small island off the coast of Scotland to work at a whisky distillery. The story uses the whisky-making and maturation process as an analogy for how boys mature into men.

ASIN: B00DY07GAK. Published by WGR, 2013.

Yellow Power, Yellow Soul: The Radical Art of Fred Ho

co-edited by Tamara Roberts ’00

Saxophonist Fred Ho is an unabashedly revolutionary artist who offers up music that is daring, informative, scholarly, ambitious, brashly confident, and vigorous. A foremost voice in the history of West Coast Asian-American jazz, East Coast avant-garde, and numerous anti-oppression movements, Ho has spent his life redefining the relationship between art and politics. This collection explores his life, work, and persona. Roberts is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology and performance studies at the University of California-Berkeley.

ISBN-13: 978-0252078996. Published by the University of Illinois Press, 2013.

The Machines of Sex Research: Technology and the Politics of Identity, 1945-1985

by Donna Drucker ’98

This book by an alumna and former guest professor in the CC Feminist and Gender Studies Department describes how researchers worldwide integrated technology into studies of human sexuality in the postwar era. Drucker describes the little-known history of these machines and shows how their use in sex research provided some of the intellectual underpinnings of the sexual revolution and the women’s and gay rights movements.

ISBN-13: 978-9400770638. Published by Springer, 2013.

Islamic Revival in Nepal: Religion and a New Nation

by Megan Adamson Sijapati ’96

Sijapati conducted fieldwork in Nepal from 2005-10, examining the local and global factors that shape contemporary Muslim identity and the emerging Islamic revival movement based in the Kathmandu valley. Nepal’s Muslims are participants in the global movement of Sunni revival as well as in Nepal’s politics of representation. The book traces how these two worlds come together in Nepal’s transition to secularism, and explores Muslim struggles for belonging against a backdrop of marginalization. Sijapati is associate professor of religious studies and co-director
of globalization studies at Gettysburg College.

This textbook explores various theoretical approaches to human-environment geography, and demonstrates how local dynamics and global processes influence how people interact with their environments. It examines the core theoretical traditions within the field, along with major issues such as population, food and agriculture, and water resources. Writes one reviewer: “This is a refreshing and engaging book which focuses on the real core of geographical study — understanding the relationships between people and environment.”

ISBN-13: 978-1405189316. Published by Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Moose Lips

by Mark Taylor, illustrated by Jan Yalich Betts ’77

Taylor and Betts’ adventure began more than 35 years ago when they met in high school art class. They reconnected on Facebook after Betts posted a photo of a moose, and Taylor commented that he told his granddaughter bedtime stories about a moose. The rest is history in true CC fashion: The two collaborated long-distance on a children’s book in which Prince Harry travels through fairy tale kingdoms to finally reach Moosrovia, but only after many adventures and visits to princesses.

ISBN-13: 978-1491286623. Published by CreateSpace, 2013

Danny Celebrates Advent

by Jennifer Trujillo Grenardo ’00

This children’s book tells the story of Advent through Danny the Donkey and his family. Illustrated by Emmy-nominated artist Jeff West, it introduces Catholic traditions celebrated throughout the Advent season. It includes instructions for entertaining and simple crafts for young children to make with their parents, grandparents, or teachers. Grenardo is a former teacher and principal at Catholic elementary and middle schools in inner-city Los Angeles. She also designed and directs a faith-formation program for toddlers and their parents.

ISBN-13: 978-1619561793. Published by Tau Publishing, 2013

The Possibilities

by Kaui Hart Hemmings ’98

Hemmings’ second novel is set in Breckenridge, Colo., where Sarah St. John is reeling from the death of her 22-year-old son Cully, killed in an avalanche. Her retired father tries to distract her with gadgets from the QVC home shopping channel, and her best friend offers life advice by venting details of her messy divorce. Barely ready to face the fact of her son’s death, Sarah is surprised when a strange girl arrives on her doorstep, bearing a secret from Cully that could change their lives forever. As she did in her debut novel “The Descendants,” Hemmings considers the difficult questions of what we risk to keep loved ones close.

ISBN-13: 978-1476725796. Published by Simon & Schuster, 2014

Fearless Latin: A Gardener’s Introduction to Botanical Nomenclature

by Sara Grogan Mauritz ’65

Published since 1994 in the Portland Garden Club’s member newsletter, “Fearless Latin” began as a monthly series of articles designed to make botanical Latin approachable and useful to the average gardener. At the urging of many fellow gardeners, Mauritz consolidated the articles into a book. The result is an invitation to gardeners everywhere to learn to use this tool to their and their gardens’ advantage. Mauritz is a lifelong and avid gardener, and an approved GCA horticulture judge.

Alumni who have written or edited books or recorded CDs are invited to send notifications to bulletin@coloradocollege.edu and bookstore@coloradocollege.edu or to mail
a copy to Bulletin, 14 E. Cache La Poudre St., Colorado Springs, CO 80903. All submitted materials will be donated to Tutt Library; inscriptions inside books always welcome.